


we who are left (behind)

by dendral



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, coping with the grief of losing someone you love, this is a Teeny fic pls accept this offering while i continue the longfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dendral/pseuds/dendral
Summary: Barriss has been jailed. Ahsoka has left the Order. In the aftermath of all of this, where is Luminara?
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luminara Unduli
Comments: 18
Kudos: 92





	we who are left (behind)

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't get this outta my head, the show did us dirty by not letting luminara be anywhere in this arc

He found her sitting in the gardens, under a tree that had been a mere sapling when they were Younglings. It was grown, now, lush and green and casting a long, broad shadow. She was alone under it, her eyes closed, head bowed in a meditative pose and she looked at peace, or at least peaceful.

Obi-Wan sat next to her, folding his legs underneath each other and resting his hands in his lap. He watched the edges of the tree’s shadow flicker and dance as the ever-constant breeze passed lightly through the leaves overhead.

"Shouldn't you be with Skywalker?" she said after a minute, and Obi-Wan had known she wasn't really meditating, knew how to tell when she was faking it; it was all in her breathing, uneven and hitched, shallow in her chest. He couldn't blame her for her lack of focus. He didn't think he'd be able to meditate either.

"I think the last thing he wants," Obi-Wan said slowly, "is to talk to someone who is on the Council."

Luminara's eyes snapped open. She glanced over without turning her head, but she quickly averted her gaze back to the grass spread out before them.

Silence.

There were words somewhere, Obi-Wan knew there were, but all the right ones escaped him.

Perhaps they always would.

"I'm sorry," he said, instead of the millions of other things he thought to say.

Luminara tilted her head. "For what?"

"For your loss," Obi-Wan replied. "It wasn't your fault."

A bark of harsh laughter, and Luminara slapped a hand over her mouth, delicate nails digging into her skin. She choked. A whine escaped through the spaces of her fingers and she closed the gaps with her other hand, muffling it. Obi-Wan watched as she swallowed back the sound, forcing it down her throat and away.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and before she could speak, he said again, forcefully, "It wasn't your fault, Luminara."

“How can you say that?” she said, her voice strained, and she wrapped her arms around her waist, curling in on herself. “I was her Master. She didn’t feel that she could talk to me about her conflict. She didn’t feel that she could trust me with her heart. How could it possibly be anything other than a failure on my part?”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Maybe you did fail her. I can’t say you didn’t. It’s not my place to make that judgement. Any Master would feel the same as you—I know I would. But it still wasn’t your fault. She was a Knight, independent from you. Her actions were her own.”

“Those are big words coming from the man who takes the fall for Skywalker’s actions on every other mission,” Luminara retorted bitterly.

Obi-Wan’s brows raised. “My goodness, is the Temple gossip mill really that believable? I’ll have you know that his so-called actions are joint efforts between myself and Anakin to annoy the rest of the Council. It works every time.” Obi-Wan paused, glanced at Luminara and saw she was smiling despite herself. He cast her a lopsided grin. “Besides, I make as many bad calls as he does. His are just a little more… _explosive_.”

Luminara snorted. She rubbed her eyes, red-rimmed and watery. “I know what you’re doing, Obi-Wan. You’re trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?” he asked and shifted over to sit shoulder to shoulder with her. “It always worked when we were Younglings, but it seems you’ve grown wise to my foolproof methods.”

She laughed. “They were hardly foolproof. But they were preferable to everything else, so forgive me if I indulged.”

Obi-Wan sighed dramatically and closed his eyes. “I suppose I can forgive you, though I must admit I’m miffed you saw through me the whole time.” He opened one eye to glance at Luminara. She had a smile on her face—a small, timid one, but reassuring nonetheless. “I can’t be too mad, anyway,” he continued. “It seems my method worked after all.”

Luminara raised a brow and shook her head. “You’ve always been very effective, Master Kenobi.” She fell silent again, turning her face towards the leaves, towards the sun filtering through the clear dome above them. She seemed like she wanted to say something, but was trying to figure out how to say it.

It was a feeling Obi-Wan was familiar with. He couldn’t figure out how to say a damn thing to Anakin, it seemed.

“You’re here, comforting me, as though I am the only one who lost a Padawan,” Luminara said, her voice so quiet Obi-Wan almost didn’t hear her.

His chest tightened. He drew his knees up and leaned his elbows on them. He clenched his fists, then loosened them. “She wasn’t my Padawan.”

Luminara snorted. “You and I both know that’s a lie.”

“Yes.”

Obi-Wan wished things had been different. He wished Ahsoka hadn’t run. He wished he’d helped her. He wished he’d spoken out more, demanded the Council stand up to the Senate, even though he knew they wouldn’t be able to win.

He’d wanted to beg her to stay. He’d wanted to go after her and Anakin, but when Plo stopped him he knew he had to let her go. He knew why she made the decision she did—Anakin had almost once done the same. He understood that she needed to walk her own path.

But she was still a child. Even if she had been ready to be a Knight, she was still just a child they’d failed during the war.

There were many of those, by now.

“All I can hope for,” Obi-Wan said, “is that everything Anakin and I taught her will keep her safe. But you’re right. I miss her. I feel as though I don’t deserve to, given everything that happened. I should have fought harder for her.”

“You did everything you could,” Luminara replied. “There was little that _could_ be done. I’m…” Her voice hitched. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what Barriss did to her. If I’d been more attentive, if I’d checked on her more…”

“Luminara, stop,” Obi-Wan said. “I know you blame yourself, but it wasn’t your fault. Barriss is an adult. She was a _Knight_.”

“And maybe she shouldn’t have been,” Luminara snapped, bitterness lacing her voice. “I recommended her for Knighthood. She wasn’t ready. Everything that has happened has shown me she wasn’t ready, I should’ve known that! But I was blind to the truth.”

Obi-Wan scrambled to his knees and placed a hand on her shoulder. “No,” he said. “ _No._ Trusting your Padawan doesn’t make you blind. We all believed that Barriss was ready. The Council agreed—she _was_ ready. If we hadn’t, she wouldn’t have become a Knight. Whatever happened that convinced her to turn to the Dark Side, it happened after she was already a Knight.” He gave Luminara a gentle shake. “Please, Luminara. You need to stop blaming yourself.”

“Do you think she hates me?” she asked suddenly.

“I wish I could tell you she didn’t,” Obi-Wan admitted. He let his hand slip off her shoulder, back into his lap. “I don’t know if she does. Maybe Barriss didn’t say anything to you because she loves you more than you know. Perhaps she didn’t want to break your heart.”

“I just…” Luminara whispered. “I thought…”

Obi-Wan pulled her into a tight hug, wrapping his arms around her shaking shoulders. She buried her face into his neck.

“Just look at us,” she said. “We’re a sorry sight, aren’t we? Two Masters that have lost their Padawans. We make quite a pair.”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “Well, there is no other Jedi I would rather share my grief with. We can talk, or meditate, or just sit. Whatever you would like.”

Luminara pulled away to wipe at her eyes. “I think,” she said slowly, “that I would like if we did all three.”

With a smile, Obi-Wan stood and offered his hand. “Shall we? I have a truly magnificent Corellian wine in my quarters that I’ve been saving for a horrible week.”

“We shall,” Luminara replied, and took his hand.


End file.
